Saying Goodbye to Ira Miller
He was friends with John Belushi and John Candy, Mel Brooks, and Ringo Starr, but you probably never heard of him. Here’s the story of his last afternoon.
I would be surprised if you knew who Ira Miller was, even though you’ve probably seen him or heard his voice somewhere. If you watch old Mel Brooks movies you can find him working there, part of the scene, a professional funnyman, and character actor, not famous but known and respected by his peers.
Ira lived a quiet life in Hollywood, teaching improv at Second City, doing voice-overs, smoking prodigious quantities of weed, and hanging out with a very select crowd of musicians, comedians, and actors. If you knew Ira, you were probably in the business, and you probably stayed up late.
When Ira died in September of 2012, we had been friends for almost sixty years, starting as schoolboys from the same neighborhood in Chicago. Ira always told me that we first met as thirteen-year-olds when I shared a nudist magazine I’d found in a trash can with him. What I remember from the beginning is something that happened when we were about seventeen or eighteen.
